FRC Blogged - An Early Option

Blog Date:

Thursday, October 25, 2012 - 15:21

I’ve got some news I think many teams will be happy with.

As more Kit of Parts items shift from the Kickoff Kit to FIRST® Choice and the Virtual Kit (e.g. Product Donation Vouchers, PDVs), teams will receive fewer items in the Kickoff Kit each year, but have a wider variety and volume of items from which to choose that may meet their specific needs better. However, the added flexibility of FIRST Choice and PDV’s mean that teams may need to plan a little extra time for part selection and shipping.

To help teams plan and prepare for the season, FIRST Choice and select Virtual Kit items will be available before Kickoff. Some items in FIRST Choice are game specific, so those will only be available after Kickoff.

Early FIRST Choice and Virtual Kit orders are only available to 2013 FRC Teams that have registered and paid. Team specific access codes will be made live available in the team’s TIMS account on December 10. If a team registers and/or pays after this date, the codes will become live in the team’s TIMS account once payment is confirmed.

Comments

First, Let me say getting this stuff early is going to be great. However, this comes with a few questions:
1. If a team wants to get a game piece, for example, do they have to wait for their entire order until after kick-off? Can they purchase a generic "game piece" item pre kick-off, and have that portion shipped after kick-off? Can they place a partial order early, then the rest later?
2. For the PDV's, will there be any indication on legal parts prior to December 10? For example, which BB motors will be legal this year, or will the new Victor 888 be legal?

On the Innovation PDV it says you can get two jaguars or victors. Our team was wondering if that includes what comes in the kit or instead of the kit. Like i know in the past veterans get 2 motor controllers in kit so would we still get the two plus if we choose to get two more with the PDV or would we just get the two from the PDV and none in the KOP.

The conditions listed for accessing the early FIRST Choice and PDV is "2013 FRC Teams that have registered and paid"

Does this refer to initial event registration and payment (due December 7th 2012), or do all events (2nd Regional, 3rd, Championship) have to be paid by December 10th in order to qualify? Those additional events have a payment deadline of January 25th, 2013, and our team doesn't typically have the funds in early December to cover the addional registration.

Our team (3528) is one of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center teams. Their payments are to go directly to FIRST to pay the initial KOP and 1st Regional fee. However, this payment has not yet been paid. Per the update regarding FIRST Choice and all the vouchers, "Early FIRST Choice and Virtual Kit orders are only available to 2013 FRC Teams that have registered and paid. Team specific access codes will be made live available in the team’s TIMS account on December 10." Does this mean that the NASA Marshall SFC teams will not be able to order anything until NASA has paid that team's fee?